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Mallory
Hey, it's Mallory. Before we jump into today's episode, I.
Martin Bout
Just want to give you a name.
Mallory
To look out for in 2025.
Martin Bout
It is rare that I come across.
Mallory
A tech tool that's designed to help address fundraiser burnout by actually reducing our overwhelm and making actions easier to do. But I was floored when I saw the magic of Cadenza.
So I want you to keep an.
Eye out for that name Cadenza. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast and my email because we are going to have some fun analys announcements coming in 2025 and if you just can't wait any longer, you can go check out what they're building@getcadenza.com that's get cadenza.com I can't wait to hear what you think.
Martin Bout
What empathy is defined as is very important when we have this conversation. So it's really one's responses to the feelings or experiences of another, right? And empathy is often mistaken for sympathy or pity. But empathy has multiple facets and the way I talk about it always includes things like perspective taking, which is not necessarily feeling somebody else's feelings, but understanding where somebody is coming from.
Mallory
Hey, my name is Mallory and I'm obsessed with helping leaders in the nonprofit space raise money and run their organizations differently. What the fundraising is a space for real and raw conversations to both challenge and inspire you. Not too long ago, I was in your shoes, uncomfortable with fundraising and unsure of my place in this sector. It wasn't until I started to listen to other experts outside of the fundraising space that I was able to shift my mindset and ultimately shift the way I show up as a leader. This podcast is my way of blending professional and personal development so we as a collective inside the nonprofit sector can feel good about the work we are doing. Join me every week as I interview some of the brightest minds in the personal and professional development space to help you fundamentally change the way you lead and fundraise. I hope you enjoy this episode. So let's dive in.
Martin Bout
Welcome everyone. I am so excited to be here today with Martin Bout. Martin, welcome to what the Fundraising.
Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting.
I am really excited to dig into some research that you did around fundraiser behavior and that relationship to donor behavior and then sort of start to peel back that onion a little bit. But why don't we start with you just giving an overview to who you are, what brings you to our conversation and then you can walk people through that research a little bit.
Yeah, no this is great, and I am so happy to be here. So I just, first and foremost, like, I just finished this and anybody who is watching this, who doesn't hasn't read this. Like, you're missing out. So quick plug for your book. You didn't pay me for this. This is all above board, so. My name is Martin Bout, and I am now the vice president for major and transformational giving at United Way of Central Indiana, which is One of the 10, 15 largest United Ways in the country. I lead a team of about 10 fundraisers there, you know, including managing the portfolios for our CEO and for our chief development officer. But before this, I was a frontline fundraiser myself. So at first got some early career experiences that were more broadly because, you know, that's what happens when you get into the nonprofit world. But as I started working for Indiana University, which was about 12 years ago at this point, I was a major gift officer at the IU Mars School of Law and then for IU Global, which is really the international relations arm for the university. So that dealt with study abroad, international students, and all of our international development work. And yeah, in the process, I've met a lot of donors, I've met a lot of fundraisers, a lot of people who manage the fundraising process. So all of those experiences now come in very handy, you know, when running my own team within United Way of Central Indiana. Yeah, I can jump into this research thing and why we are connected, because this is one of these things where, you know, we had this, this quick phone call a few weeks ago, and I was like, oh, my God, how have we not met? Me too, because I, you know, there's so many, so many parallels between, like, what you talk about in the book and what I've been researching. So this, the research that I did was at the Lilly Felony School of Philanthropy, where I did a master's degree in philanthropic studies. And I was taking this course that was called Altruism and Health. This was taught by Sarah Konrath, who is a social psychologist, who. One of her specialties is empathy.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
What empathy is defined as is very important when we have this conversation. So it's really one's responses to the feelings or experiences of another.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And empathy is often mistaken for sympathy or pity. But empathy has multiple facets. And the way I talk about it always includes things like perspective taking, which is not necessarily feeling somebody else's feelings, but understanding where somebody is coming from. You can, of course, use empathy in the way of you're feeling somebody else's Feelings, Right. And if you look at, you know, some of those empathy scores and indexes, those are separate, you know, things that are broken out, like how empathetic they are. That, for our purposes, is not completely important because we're going to talk about one specific form of empathy, which cognitive empathy, which somehow, bank shot, we found some early evidence of that that matters in the relationship between the fundraiser and the donor. Now, when empathy is mentioned in fundraising, it's often creating empathy in the donor with the cause or the mission or the recipient of the. But we flipped it on his head. And the reason was, and this is where the altruism and health class comes in. We looked at a study that was about doctors. I think it's from 2009 or 2010. This was so fascinating to me because it looked at patients who had the common cold and who went to a doctor and had different treatments for the patients. But the difference in treatment existed purely on the difference between how empathetic the doctor was perceived by the patient.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So some doctors were in kind of like the warm condition where they really care, they showed care for their patients and interest in their issues. The other condition was cold fish. Like a doctor who didn't seem to really care about how their patients were feeling. And the outcome was, the result that they found is that those patients who perceived the doctor to be more caring about their condition recover two days faster from the common cold. Now, common cold, of course, there's no. There's no medicine for it. There's only remedies. There's no real cure for it. So this was really something where it's like, there must be some psychological effect that that has on the patient that makes them recover faster. And Sarah and I were talking about this and, like, you know, I'm a major fundraiser. I see donors all the time. I write the, you know, the kind of fundraising equivalent to doctor's notes, like contact reports, like, is there something here? So we started kind of like batting around, like, how can we get to this question of does empathy in the fundraiser towards the donor actually have an effect on those giving outcomes?
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And there's lots of ways in which you can explore that. But one of the issues that you run into really quickly, and it was probably the same with those, the doctor patient relationships, is that once you start observing in the room, the relationship changes.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So we were kind of thinking of, like, okay, what proxies do we have for how to measure whether or not a fundraiser is being empathetic towards the donor and how can we Correlate that to giving outcomes. So where you get out, where you get very quickly is there's only one place where you can look, and that's in the. In, you know, constituents relationship management tool that you have. And look at contact reports. Now, I won't go into all of the details about how you have to, like, code the contact reports, how it then translates to. But when we were looking at the data, one is we did find that with the coding manual that we use, it's basically to analyze each individual contact report on whether or not the fundraiser was expressing certain aspects of the relationship. We did find that we could kind of tell which people were using cognitive empathy or emotional empathy, or we're just talking about the donor's kids or pets and stuff like that. When we then correlated those results to the giving outcomes for the fundraisers, pretty clear that those fundraisers who scored higher on including measures of empathy were also the ones who raised more money. Right now, very important asterisk here. This has not been replicated, Right. This was a really. It was a test study to see if we could do this. We read through 600 contact reports. 150 needed to be just taken out because they were just. There was like, I sent the donor a birthday card. Not really a relevant contact report. We really focused only on those where there was actual conversation being described. But having, you know, an additional study that would kind of like, look at that would actually be really valuable to really establish connections. Now, I have to say, like, I was at the Science of Philanthropy Initiative conference a few weeks ago, and the very reason why that exists is because very often there's this huge gap between what the researchers are looking at and what can be helpful on Monday morning for fundraisers.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And this is one of these things where if we really could have conclusive evidence, that kind of setting in the fundraiser, really thinking through what is important to the donor, what would be the opportunities they would respond to very well, because it aligns with their values or their desires or that deeply held beliefs. Those are the kinds of things that, you know, would be really helpful because you can start training fundraisers to actually do these things. Right. So when John List was talking about this, this conference, he's like, yeah, you know, like when I saw this truism, yeah, matches work, and the more the better, I wanted to test whether that was true.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And I think the same counts for this kind of stuff where if empathy is truly a moderator of success, right? So if it really changes the equation between the donor and the fundraiser, to, you know, the degree that it actually allows for better giving outcomes.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And what. Better giving outcomes there I'm leaving up in the air for now. But then we can start training fundraisers to actually do certain things more.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And this is what I thought was so amazing in your book. It's like, those aspects are important, right? Because they. We think, you know, and I think you and I are on the same page here, is that there's these things that we can't readily measure that are super important in our work that change the outcomes and that we rarely find in how organizations are structured or how work is structured or how fundraisers are incentivized to do their work, to really have importance. And I don't know, like, that's. That's. You know, I'd love to hear your thoughts about, like, how you think through that, because in your book, I. I feel like we're pretty much on the same page there.
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's so interesting because I feel like so much of the book was like, there is, you know, when people ask me, oh, is there research about fundraisers in the book? And I was like, there is really very little research about fundraisers in the ecosystem. There's a lot of research about donor behavior, but fundraiser behavior has really not been prioritized or studied. And I think. I mean, I think you and I are aligned in everything you're saying. I think where I get really curious is around, like, I think it might take us stepping out of the way we typically think about training people because. Because sure, we can train people to say things that sound empathetic, but to. But you can't really train someone to be empathetic. You can give them tools to tap into empathy, like, inside themselves, and you can give them tools that help that. Like, that's what in my work, I try to focus on. Right. But, like, I think the way we typically think about training in that sort of, like, prefrontal cortex zone of our brain, it's like, will that work for the emotional experience experiences that we're hoping to cultivate? And, like, if we're trying to cultivate feeling experiences. Right. We want the donor to feel something that requires the fundraiser to feel something. Right. And so then how do we sort of, like, force ourselves out of the way that maybe we've thought about these boxes before to say we're trying to create experiences. The experience of the person on the other side of that relationship is the primary indicator. And you're right. Like, we do. We have that research. Exactly. No, but we all know this. Like, you know, like, I mean, I remember like talking about, in the coaching work that I do, I'm trained in something called energy leadership, with which you now know from reading the book. But I really stayed away from the word energy for a long time. I live in Berkeley, California. Sure, people already think I'm very woo woo. But I was like, I don't know, the energy is really going to land with people, right? They're going to distance themselves. But then when I first started to talk about it a little bit, I was like, listen, what happens when we're in a room and we can feel somebody looking at us from across the room? Or what happens when we're interaction with a friend or someone we love and we can feel that something's off, right? We can feel that we're disconnected, we can feel that somebody's mad at. How do we know Sometimes when somebody's mad at us before they've told us they're mad at us, we can feel it. That's in our energy, in our nervous system, in our sort of co regulation. And so we know that how we show up impacts how other people feel. And yet I feel like we try to like sever that in fundraising in this way. And that is ultimately then what leads to this like kind of broken, broken outcome. The other thing, I'll just say I really, I'm really curious what you think about what I, I just said. And before I forget the other thing, I just want to say based on, you know, everything you shared before is like empathy. The thing that is that I love about thinking about empathy in the fundraiser is that empathy is also really good for us to experience. It helps us feel more connected. It, it's been shown to reduce stress, actually even improve our nerve, improve our immune system. It like helps us have more pro social behavior, improves our communication, it diffuses conflict, right? It's like all these things that are so good for us too. And so it's like, it's not just about like have empathy so you can do this thing that pulls you again out of your own intention and alignment, right? And is only for this outcome that you feel a lot of pressure around. And instead being like, empathy is this experience that is really positive for the fundraiser, really positive for the donor. It builds connection, it builds relationships, it builds alignment when it's there. So what do you think?
I completely agree. So first one of the thoughts that I had was that teaching empathy is not necessarily just saying to people like, hey, you have to Be more empathetic, right? Because that doesn't typically work. Like, for example, just telling somebody to calm down doesn't make them calm. Actually does the opposite.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
Typically, you know, it doesn't really work. So, you know, when you're talking about training empathy, you're talking for those kinds of behaviors that indicate a change in behavior, right? So one example of such thing is writing exercises, right? So, and this, this goes straight back to contact reports, right? If you can teach somebody how to write a contact report and to, to describe the things that normally would indicate a high level, high degree of empathy towards the donor, people start looking for those things, right? To write those things down. And empathy is innately human, right? There's, you know, there's very few people who are born without empathy, right. Called psychopaths. Hopefully there's very, very few of them. But, you know, it is something that most people carry with them in some way, shape or form. Because this is, you know, an essentially human skill that we have. Like, it is essential for our survival and therefore it's essential to our coding. Like, we, we are coded that way and we will operate it. This is, I think, one of the things that I think is difficult in like video conversations, for example, you can't really look somebody in the eye. So I trying frantically to look you in the eye at the same time too, it's trying to speak to the camera. But those are the kinds of things that for me say, like, we have to be in the same room with somebody, we have to have these conversations because that is how we're built, right? And I think empathy is totally part of that to like the, the state that we're in. So I want to just. And this sounds completely unrelated, but I'm going to go do differently. So I gave a presentation case.
I'm in case at one point and.
At that time we were in a campaign and I said, let's just do this thought experiment. Say we're just looking at dollars in the door and we have a campaign goal and we have a visit goal. We have these traditional fundraising metrics that we are working towards. We say we are at goal. We have raised $2 billion. We're still trending upwards. We're doing really, really well. If you're at the top of that pyramid as a president of a university or the president of, of whatever nonprofit organization, and you look at that number, can it tell you whether or not that is the right number?
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And if you look at the numbers, it's like, well, you know, this is the amount people gave, this is the amount of people pledged, this is the amount of people committed. And you have to trust that that amount could not be significantly higher or significantly lower. Like, there's no information in that number that says how your donors feel about their gifts, Right? Because maybe if they felt better, they would have given $10 million instead of 5, right? You do not know this, right? This is. This is one of these things that are unmeasurable by the traditional measures that we use.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And I think that is kind of the most ridiculous example of how we're approaching measuring success in our work.
Unknown
Right?
Martin Bout
Because what we know is that relationship that give meaning to a donor. I mean, this is a truism, but, you know, I would care to wager that that's actually what's going on. People who feel more meaning or purpose out of their relationship and out of the opportunity to participate in something and to really materialize their, you know, moral imagination, just to use a Lilly family school of philanthropy phrase. You know, I think that is really the key to success. It's really the definition of success is like, how do people feel about this and what does it do, right? Rather than it's million and a half, right? Because if a million and a half would have been three, if they would have been treated better or there's a purpose that is, you know, this is one of these things where money that is in the door cannot tell you anything about the quality of how that money was raised.
Unknown
Right?
Martin Bout
And the argument for looking at things like empathy or how fundraisers feel like you're writing in your book, like, how are fundraisers in their work? And I'll just use the examples in your book, right? If fundraisers are focused on a transaction, and our fundraisers are basically have in their heads that they have to hit this magical $1 million number, which is again, like round numbers in our business. It makes no sense, but we have to make my sense anyway. But when you're distracted by a number that you have to hit and by how this person fits into that number, you're going to not look for what matters to this person. You're going to think about like, okay, how. What can I say? How can I move them to give the $50,000 that we need in order to get to the million, right? So you're extracting the person's values, interests, et cetera out of there. Plus you're putting it ton of pressure on yourself to get to that number rather than to really lean into that human aspect of the relationship where there's like, so what is it that is important to you? How do you feel about our mission? What are the things that you want to materialize in the world? You cannot ask these questions if you're exhausted and if your mind is on the numbers or if you're afraid you're not going to hit the dollar goal. Right. So. And when we first talked on the phone, talked a little bit about Dan Harris and about his 10% happier stuff, and one of the people that I found out about through that was Judson Brewer. Does the name sound familiar? He is.
It does sound familiar, but I can't think of it. Yeah, yeah.
He's a psychologist who really works. Originally, he worked in the overeating space, and he's built this platform on anxiety as well. And basically what he is on this kind of. On that gray area between Eastern philosophy and modern psychiatric science where the things that we were talking about in meditation kind of have a. You have some evidence now in. So what he's talking about, the brain regions that you engage when you are fearful or anxious or are distracted by something that you perceive as a threat are incompatible or not engageable at the same time as those that are, you know, introspection and really looking at your body and really thinking about, like, what is going on here.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So. And the trick there is, and I'm dumbing this down and he's going to sue me after this gets aired. But the idea is that basically, you plant yourself as a layer on top or in between that anxiety and looking at what's going on in your body so that you kind of disengage from that anxiety.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So bring it back to your book. That's what I read in it. It's like, you know, you get so absorbed by the pressures that we create as part of how organizations organize fundraising, that actually detracts from what we ideally are doing as fundraisers. And so it's like, it's working exactly against the success of the fundraisers. Right. So bringing it back to empathy, unlocking the ability for fundraisers to be empathetic in a conversation could lead to better fundraising outcomes. So if you disable that, you know, the ability to be empathetic because you put so much pressure on fundraisers, would actually be working against your own mission. Right. So it's one of these things where I feel like if we could have really solid, concrete evidence that those things are truly moderators in these giving outcomes. And I think that we are getting to the point where we can bring in science from other Fields to kind of explain, hey, this is what's going on, you know, we could actually change the game for fundraisers. And I do really think that what you're writing about in the book, like that constant pressure, those creating those circumstances by which people actually do end up being burned out, that we are not really looking into how these things are actually contributing or causing some of those larger macro trends. Because, you know, I can tell you from my experiences that as a major gift fundraiser, I was never incentivized to build long term relationships with people who did not have the capacity to meet the minimum threshold of what was called a major gift.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And you can kind of extrapolate that if you ignore a whole group of people because they don't have the money yet for, you know, in favor of just focusing really on a group of people who already have that money, you're creating these inequities yourself. And I'm not saying that this is exclusively the result of our practices, but I do think there's something to say for it. For sure.
Yes, I totally, totally agree. And I was over here taking a few notes for myself on everything that you were saying.
Mallory
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Martin Bout
I mean, I think, and just to back up to your point a few minutes ago, around the how do we measure things? I also think not only does money not tell us the whole story, I love what you're talking about in terms of the quality of the experience. Experience both for the donor and for the fundraiser. But also like the way in which we even look at money on a one year basis. Like, it's like, what does success mean? Right? It's like, what does success mean? And when we're not only driving just towards that million dollar goal, but we're driving towards that million dollar goal at the end of this year. So not only do we have tunnel vision to get the gift and do whatever we can to get the gift, but we're doing it with a short horizon in we're Often jeopardizing a deeper, bigger relationship down the line because of the way in which we're handling that relationship for that like short term metric. And so yeah, I think there is like the like, you know, frontier ahead of us is really like looking at how do we define measure success inside this sector, how does that trickle down to like how are we currently doing it and how is that trickling down to actually impede us from being able to show the success that deep down we really want to have. And then also like how do we flip that and really rewrite the way we think about things there? Because otherwise we're going to just like, you know my one of something I say often to people is like, don't tell me what you care about, show me what you track. And so we cannot say like we care about, you know, deep relationships, we care about donors coming on, on, along on a journey with us, da da da da da. And then all the things we're tracking our transactional money metrics on short time horizons like we, it just, it's the.
You can't management efficiency your way out of this donor decline and magic gift overreliance.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
This is really one of these things where if you do focus your fundraisers on certain aspects, they're going to do it, they want to do a good job and they're going to focus on that. And what I do really think is that if you rely on the short term gain, you're missing some of the more important aspects of how people develop relationships with causes. Because it's not a one and done thing for most donors like this is there, there is a place for somebody making a one time gift because it's relevant right now and no longer.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
I'm not saying that a long term relationship is for everybody, but I do think that some long term relationships are valued over others. Especially when it comes to like replacing those donors who are no longer with us, right? Those donors who pass away or those donors who, you know, move on to other things. And one of the things that I think is important there is that when you look at the things we do with donors who yet have to get to the place where they can make a major gift is that it has focuses so much on the transaction and so little on actually engaging them in a meaningful way in the work that we're doing that it's no surprise that then later people aren't really interested in having a personal relationship once they are in that place. Because we are not the only ones who are building up a relationship with them.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
Like, I always joke that a major donor probably sees more fundraisers than you see donors.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
It's like, you know, it's the, when you think about the, when somebody registers typically on our major gift radar, the amount of engagement that has gone before, it is very indicative of whether or not this is going to go anywhere.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And you could be surprised that somebody. But if somebody has not, you know, engaged as a donor before is much less likely because their own behavior doesn't suggest that they really are into it or that they have never been asked.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
If they have never been to events, if they've never volunteered, if they've never had a conversation with anybody in the organization, the relationship is really at the very, very beginning.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And when you're talking about like, we need to raise money within this calendar year, you can't rely on somebody who you haven't had a conversation with to do that.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
It's just, you know, the, those industry benchmarks, like the 12 to 18 month time that it takes from the first conversation about a major gift to actually finalize that major gift, the six or seven years that it takes from somebody from a first gift to a major gift that comes from somewhere.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And I do really think that part of the work, and this is slightly tangential and I apologize for that, but part of the work is also being done by other people. And I'm not meaning people in our organization, but other fundraisers for other organizations. So, you know, if a donor truly is a major gift donor, they should register on other people's radars as well.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And if they have a negative experiences with one organization or with one fundraiser, that has potentially negative downstream consequences for every subsequent fundraiser who calls on the donor.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And one of the most frequent things that I hear from donors, and that is in any organization I've worked, is that they don't like turnover, for example.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And I think it says two things to me. It says two things. One is that turnover is an issue in our industry. And thinking about what you write in the book, there's lots of ways in which we can address it by just making it a better, a happier job for people by just changing how we actually allow them to do their job. And also, just as a side note, the happiest fundraisers are those who have those meaningful conversations with their donors that lead to gifts that are very meaningful to them.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So I think that group we can serve up as evidence that that is, you know, that's a very joyful profession.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And then the second thing is that if donors have bad experiences with other fundraisers, that may have an effect on how you can interact with them. I was actually talking about something I said two sentences before. What? What I said. So the turnover in our profession is also a reason why people just feel like a number.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
So because it's like, oh, you don't have a real relationship with me, but you keep sending people, so I must be important to you, but not important enough to get somebody talking to me, that stays.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And, you know, it's when I talk about, like, practices in our industry that may be driving donors away, that is the kind of stuff that I'm talking about. Right. So doing the kinds of things that would change the game for fundraisers in terms of their working conditions would probably cause them to stay longer, would not cause them to burn out or have to find a different position, and in return, also allow them to work longer with the donors that they are assigned to.
Unknown
Right.
Martin Bout
And it's one of these things where, like, I feel like the answer is so patently obvious. It's just some of these things, like you're saying we're not tracking it. We're not tracking how these things affect each other, and therefore, it's just not on the radar of the people who make the kinds of decisions that could change those working conditions.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I could talk to you forever, but I know we are over time. Where can folks go to learn more about you, to see the work that you're doing and even look into some of that research that you did before? And I think you might have more research on the horizon potentially. So tell them. Tell them where they can go.
Yeah. If you're interested in how this work is, this is one of these things where unless you read some of what I've written about it, it's sometimes a little hard to kind of completely grasp the meaning of how empathy possibly moderates these relationships. There is a. A really solid blog post on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy website, which I can. I can send the link to, so you can put it in the. In the podcast notes.
Perfect.
And then I write a weekly substack newsletter that's called querycle. Q U E R I C A L. And that's where I tackle issues like what we just talked about, about how, you know, how we built a human centric fundraising practice. And I'm not just talking about the donor. I'm also talking about the fundraiser. Because you and I probably see that, you know, the fundraiser needs to be fully human too. Otherwise fundraising doesn't happen.
Exactly. Exactly. Okay, that's the perfect note to end on. Thank you so much for joining me today and sharing all this wisdom with everyone. I'm so grateful.
Thank you so much for having me. Foreign.
Mallory
I hope today's episode inspired or challenged you to think differently. For additional takeaways, tips, show notes, and more about our amazing guest and sponsors, head on over to Mallorykson.com podcast and if you didn't know, hosting this podcast isn't the only thing I do every day. I coach, guide and help fundraisers and leaders just like you inside of of my program, the Power Partners Formula Collective. Inside the program, I share my methods, tools and experiences that have helped me fundraise millions of dollars and feel good about myself in the process. To learn more about how I can help you, visit Mallorykson.com PowerPartners last but not least, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to encourage you to share it with a friend you know would benefit or leave a review. I'm so grateful. Grateful for all of you and the good hard work you're doing to make our world a better place. I can't wait to see you in the next episode. Hey you. I hope you're loving all the free value you're getting right now from our guest. And speaking of free value, I've raised millions in the non profit space without sacrificing my integrity or my alignment. And I'm sharing how I did it in my free webinar how to Harness the Power of Prioritization to raise more without burning out. Go to Malloryerickson.comworkshop to register for the free training right now. I cannot wait to see you there.
Podcast Summary: "What the Fundraising" Episode 218 – Empathy in Fundraising with Martin Bout
Release Date: December 17, 2024
In Episode 218 of "What the Fundraising," host Mallory Erickson engages in a profound conversation with Martin Bout, Vice President for Major and Transformational Giving at United Way of Central Indiana. This episode delves deep into the pivotal role of empathy in fundraising, exploring how empathetic interactions between fundraisers and donors can significantly enhance fundraising outcomes and foster more meaningful, long-term relationships.
At the outset, Mallory introduces Martin Bout, highlighting his extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. Martin shares his journey from being a frontline fundraiser to leading a team of ten fundraisers at one of the largest United Ways in the country. His background includes significant roles at Indiana University’s Mars School of Law and IU Global, focusing on international development and major gift operations.
Notable Quote:
“I’m now the vice president for major and transformational giving at United Way of Central Indiana, one of the largest United Ways in the country.” – Martin Bout [02:40]
Martin begins by defining empathy as one’s response to the feelings or experiences of another, distinguishing it from sympathy or pity. He emphasizes that empathy encompasses perspective-taking—understanding where someone is coming from without necessarily sharing their emotions.
Notable Quote:
“Empathy is often mistaken for sympathy or pity. But empathy has multiple facets, including perspective taking, which is understanding where somebody is coming from.” – Martin Bout [00:47]
Drawing from his academic background at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Martin discusses his research on the impact of cognitive empathy in fundraising. He references a study from 2009/2010 on doctors' empathy levels and patient recovery rates, illustrating how perceived empathy can lead to better outcomes—in this case, faster recovery from the common cold.
Martin correlates this to fundraising, questioning whether empathy from fundraisers towards donors influences giving outcomes. His preliminary findings from analyzing 600 contact reports reveal that fundraisers who scored higher in empathetic interactions tended to raise more money.
Notable Quote:
“Fundraisers who scored higher on including measures of empathy were also the ones who raised more money.” – Martin Bout [07:32]
Martin acknowledges the complexities in measuring empathy within fundraising interactions. He explains that direct observation can alter the nature of the relationship, making it challenging to obtain unbiased data. Instead, he utilized contact reports from constituent relationship management tools as proxies to assess empathy levels in interactions.
Notable Quote:
“When empathy is mentioned in fundraising, it's often about creating empathy in the donor with the cause. But we flipped it on its head to see if empathy from the fundraiser affects giving outcomes.” – Martin Bout [04:24]
The discussion shifts to the practical aspects of fostering empathy among fundraisers. Martin argues that empathy cannot be directly taught but can be cultivated through tools and practices that encourage fundraisers to tap into their innate empathetic abilities. He highlights the importance of meaningful conversations over transactional interactions, suggesting that training should focus on enhancing genuine connections rather than scripted empathetic responses.
Notable Quote:
“You can't really train someone to be empathetic. You can give them tools to tap into empathy and help them cultivate it.” – Martin Bout [15:46]
Martin critiques the current organizational structures within nonprofits that prioritize short-term fundraising goals over long-term relationship building. He points out that the pressure to meet monetary targets often detracts from the ability to engage donors meaningfully, leading to burnout among fundraisers and diluted donor relationships.
Notable Quote:
“If you focus on hitting short-term dollar goals, you're going to miss out on what matters to the person you're engaging with.” – Martin Bout [18:44]
A significant portion of the conversation centers on reimagining how success is measured in fundraising. Martin advocates for metrics that go beyond financial targets to include the quality of donor relationships and the experiential aspects of fundraising interactions. He argues that understanding donors' feelings and motivations provides a more comprehensive picture of fundraising success.
Notable Quote:
“We need to look at how donors feel about their gifts, not just the amount they give.” – Martin Bout [18:13]
Martin highlights the detrimental effects of high turnover rates among fundraisers, noting that frequent changes in donor contact can make donors feel like mere numbers rather than valued partners. This lack of consistency can impede the development of deep, trust-based relationships essential for sustained giving.
Notable Quote:
“Donors don’t like turnover. It makes them feel like a number, not a valued relationship.” – Martin Bout [31:09]
Towards the episode’s conclusion, Martin emphasizes the mutual benefits of empathy in fundraising—it not only enhances donor experiences but also contributes to fundraisers’ well-being by fostering meaningful interactions. He calls for the nonprofit sector to adopt more human-centric approaches, integrating empathy into training programs and organizational practices.
Notable Quote:
“Empathy is not just for donors; it’s also beneficial for fundraisers, helping them feel more connected and reducing burnout.” – Martin Bout [15:46]
Martin shares resources for listeners interested in his work, including his blog on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy website and his weekly Substack newsletter, Querycle, where he explores human-centric fundraising practices.
Closing Remarks:
“By fostering empathy and redefining how we measure success, we can transform fundraising into a more meaningful and sustainable endeavor for both donors and fundraisers.” – Martin Bout [34:22]
This episode of "What the Fundraising" offers invaluable insights into the transformative power of empathy in the nonprofit sector. By integrating empathy into fundraising strategies, organizations can not only enhance their fundraising outcomes but also create more fulfilling and sustainable relationships with their donors.